


Calm after the storm

by moonlight_petal



Series: Fiction inspired by music [7]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angry Riley, Caring Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Feels, Gen, Inspired by Music, Mental Breakdown, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, Protective Jack, Sad, Team as Family, everybody misses Mac, sad Bozer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 09:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18547066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_petal/pseuds/moonlight_petal
Summary: What happens after Mac leaves the Phoenix and how does it affect the family.





	Calm after the storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NYWCgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NYWCgirl/gifts).



> Huh... so this didn't turn out the way I meant it to but my ideas just didn't want to cooperate properly and I wasn't exactly in the best of places physically and mentally when I started it but it fit the general mood I wanted to project, so maybe it turned out alright.
> 
> @NYWCgirl: I'm not entirely sure if this is anything close to what you imagined but I do hope you like it anyway. And since it is still in time: Happy Easter.
> 
> Oh and listen to the song guys, it's beautiful, like seriously. So many feels!

** Calm after the storm **

****

~*~

  
_Thinking about you_  
 _Here in the calm after the storm_

 

                        'Calm after the storm' - The Common Linnets, 2014

 

~*~  
  


"I have to go..." Mac looked up at Jack, shoulders hanging, eyes red-rimmed and haunted. The young blond man was the picture of someone who just got the floor pulled out from under him while basically fighting for his life. A packed duffle bag rested at his feet, ready to be loaded into the truck.

 

Jack took a deep, shuddering breath, keeping his own tears at bay.

"Of course you do, kid. I understand... I hope you'll find the answers you're looking for. And remember that whatever you need, I'm just one phone call away, okay? We all will wait for your return home, keep that in mind, buddy, okay? Whatever hell your dad put you through, whatever he claimed to have done, this family? This home? It's of your own making, nobody can take that away from you but you."

 

He pulled Mac close by his neck into a fierce hug, his heart breaking a little bit more at the way the blond clung to him desperately, slowly falling to pieces once again.

 

The younger allowed himself a few minutes of just being held before he pulled away, rubbing the tears from his eyes.

"Okay, I have to go now... and Jack? I know I don't need to ask but look after Bozer, okay? And Riley of course."

 

Jack took the bag from Mac's hands, packed it safely away in the back of his truck.

"Of course, buddy, I promise. I know you plan to go off the grid for now but do me a favour, try to figure out a way to let me know you're alright from time to time, you're smart, you can do that for me, right?" he gently ruffled the blond strands and gave his friend a sad little smile.

 

"I will... goodbye Jack!" Mac promised and then turned, quickly sat behind the wheel and pulled out of his drive-way without looking back again. It was safer that way.

 

~*~

 

Jack remained outside in the moonlit driveway for a while longer, looking after his kid although he was long since gone from his view. It wasn't that Jack hoped that Mac would change his mind, the chance for that was pretty much zero. He had made up his mind and nothing short of an imminent apocalypse would bring Mac back now and just like Jack had told his partner, he understood that. Mac needed to be allowed to lick his wounds in peace, to wrap his head around the fact that his father was -for all intents and purposes- a major asshole. Honestly, had he known that back then when he had encouraged Mac to write to his dad and inadvertently had pushed over the top floor of the house of cards that now came tumbling down around their heads, Jack would have kept his mouth shut.

 

No, the reason he remained outside was to try and find an inner balance on his own emotions again before he went inside and faced Bozer, Leanna and Riley. It was hard enough for them to see Mac fall apart and ultimately run away, he couldn't add to their distress by falling apart as well, they needed him to be strong. That thought alone had kept him from quitting the Phoenix right after Mac as well.

 

He took a couple of steadying breaths, clenched and unclenched his hands a few times to shake the tension and then went inside.

 

"He's gone, right? He really went through with it, you couldn't talk him out of it?" Bozer asked, looking up with sad, brown eyes. Leanna stood behind him, a gentle hand on his shoulder, silent support in a situation that was beyond her abilities to make better.

 

Jack sighed.

"Yes, he's gone and I didn't try to talk him out of it, Boze, Mac needs this now and I can understand him well. I know it's hard on you, on all of us but put yourself in his shoes. I promised him that whenever he comes back, we'll be waiting for him but we need to be patient with him."

 

"I can't... put myself in his shoes I mean..." Riley whispered, quickly clarifying her first words when she got sharp, shocked looks for them. The woman seemed withdrawn, hurt and Jack wanted nothing more than to pull her close and hug her as well but right in that moment he knew she wouldn't take too kindly to that. "I mean, I have my fair share of issues with my father but I at least always knew where I stood with Elwood, I can't imagine how hurt Mac must be. To be honest, I don't even know if I could have stayed as civil as he did..."

 

"Probably not, neither one of us really, but that's Mac for you... We just need to make the best of a bad situation, make sure he has a home to come back to and I don't just mean this house and us, but the Phoenix as well." Jack said with determination in his voice.

 

~*~

 

With that thought in mind, all of them went about their daily lives and duties. Mac's absence was keenly felt not only by their small family but by everyone at the Phoenix.

 

It was the little things that had barely registered in the usual day to day when the blond was still around but now that he was gone a lot of the agents and techs and other staff caught themselves thinking _'Mac could fix this easily..._ ' A broken coffee maker here, a much needed improvement to some lab equipment there, Mac had always found the time to help out without taking or wanting the credit. Now it felt like the place was slowly falling apart without the care of it's best loved agent.

 

The teamwork on missions aside, that's probably when Matty really came to realise how big a part they all had lost when she, barely five weeks after Mac left, sat in her office late at night, going through numerous requests for repairs and new equipment. It was such a drastic upturn in the numbers that she didn't know what to do about it anymore. At some point she decided to leave it be, let Oversight worry about it, it was his fault after all, she thought bitterly.

 

The Phoenix director might not have been Mac's biggest fan from the start but the young man had grown on her and she missed him. So much in fact that she had tried to find another agent who might be able to improvise with random materials given well enough to give them the illusion Mac was still with them. She failed spectacularly. Not that she, deep down, had expected anything else, Mac was special after all.

 

And if all that wasn't bad enough already, she couldn't deny that she started to worry about Jack as time went by. On the outside he seemed as strong as ever, a rock to lean on for the other three young agents in his team, but Matty knew where to look, saw the cracks in Jack's well crafted, strong mask, when he thought nobody was looking. They had talked about Mac, of course, had wondered where he was but they could never be sure since the man was an agent trained to hide his tracks. Twice Jack got anonymous postcards but they all knew by the time those arrived, Mac certainly was gone again already and they didn't even try to find him at first.

 

To noone's surprise really, Bozer was the first one to break. Closing in on the two months mark since Mac's departure, they had returned from a mission that didn't work out the way they had planned, exhausted and frustrated. And it was just a little thing that did it, Mac's spare Swiss Army knife to be exact, that Bozer's eyes fell on. For just a second Bozer had thought his friend was back again, called out his name in happiness but only got silence in return. That sudden spike of hope and disappointment made his knees weak and he sat there, the knife in his hands and started to cry.

 

Leanna and Riley found him a little later still with tears running down his cheeks but otherwise barely conscious, his hands raw in places from gripping the knife so tightly. Both girls had made quick stops at their own apartments but wished they had come directly.

 

Leanna tried hard to shake her boyfriend out of it, looking at Riley with helpless eyes. The hacker whipped her phone out of her pocket and called their boss.

"Matty, we need a doctor or something at Mac's place, I think Bozer is heaving a nervous breakdown, he's not reacting to anything we say." she said the moment she heard the sign that her called got accepted, not giving the older woman a chance to say anything.

 

It seemed Matty paused for a second at the news, then got a grip on herself again.

"You got it, a med team is on their way as we speak. Is he conscious?"

 

"Barely..." Riley admitted.

 

"Okay, try to keep him that way, we don't want him to shut down completely. Does Jack know?" Matty asked, her voice slipping into serious mode.

 

"Not yet, I called you first." If Riley was being honest, she had dialled Matty's number first hoping that she didn't have to be the one to tell Jack and when she told her, Riley knew that Matty knew it as well.

 

"Alright, look after him, the team should arrive soon. I'll call Jack and have him meet us at Medical." Matty didn't wait for Riley to comment further, ending the call abruptly.

 

Jack had cursed up a blue streak when he got the call, racing back to Medical, furious with himself for not noticing how far gone Bozer already really was. He couldn't help but feel a deep stab of guilt, as if he failed Mac because he hadn't been able to look after Bozer the way he had promised him.

 

But if the older had taken the time and had allowed himself to actually look at the situation, Jack would have maybe noticed how he was slipping himself. He had taken to leaving Mac short messages, never really sure if his partner even got them, telling him random little things about what they were up to. He took care to keep his voice and content light, not intending to guilt trip Mac into coming back before he was ready.

 

After Bozer's breakdown their team got grounded for some time to give the young man time to rest and get back on his feet. That in itself was a good and bad thing. Bozer got better over time but Riley, not distracted by missions anymore but faced with Oversight at the Headquarter on a regular basis, took a turn for the worse. It was a more aggressive turn of events than with Bozer and Matty and Jack had to step up more than once to stop the young hacker from saying something she couldn't take back again and what could ultimately cost her her job.

 

Jack tried to keep the family together but at some point after several nights of restless tossing and turning he decided that he had to do something or he would break himself. And if he did, Jack vowed, it would happen while taking matters into his own hands and not in front of his family.

 

He figured if he could finish what MacGyver senior, Mac and he had started and could manage to bring Walsh in, fulfill this big mission for Oversight, the head of the Phoenix could take his leave for good and make space for Mac again. In Jack's mind it was an easy equation, if they could get 'rid' of the one MacGyver, they would get his boy back.

 

That's why he took off in the middle of the night, flying out to Mexico to see if he could pick up the trail of Walsh. It might be a long shot and a hairbrained idea but if it helped reuniting his family and ending this nightmare, he would do whatever it took.

 

~*~

 

Matty was greeted by a voicemail when she got up and ready for work.

 

_Hey Matty... I just wanted to let you know that I'll be away for a while... I can't take working without Mac much longer, I'm going to make this right so he finally can come home. Take care of the kids while I'm gone, alright? And don't worry, okay? We'll both be back soon enough._

"Oh Jack, what are you getting yourself into now..." she sighed but not in the least surprised. It had been coming for a while and all she could do now was hope that Jack didn't get himself killed out there.

 

There was one upside to these developments however, now she had a good enough reason to give Riley the go ahead to look for Mac in earnest without violating his peace. If Jack inevitably got himself into trouble at some point, there was no doubt in her heart that Mac would drop everything to bring him back safely but for that they needed to know where he was and she would be damned if she wouldn't be prepared when the time came.


End file.
